


The Arid Plain Behind

by AprilFeldspar



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gen, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Muggle Culture, Muggles, Not Epilogue Compliant, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Severus Snape Lives, Severus Snape-centric, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:27:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26181121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AprilFeldspar/pseuds/AprilFeldspar
Summary: After unexpectedly surviving Nagini's attack, Severus Snape builds a life for himself in Muggle United States in order to escape what he thinks is certain prosecution for his crimes as a Death Eater. But the past is never far behind.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Severus Snape, Severus Snape/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 64
Kudos: 84
Collections: Granger/snape fan fic, Severus Snape Lives!, Snape survives Nagini





	1. Memorial Day

**Author's Note:**

> Title from The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot:
> 
> I sat upon the shore  
> Fishing, with the arid plain behind me  
> Shall I at least set my lands in order?

“Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.”  
― Cormac McCarthy, _All the Pretty Horses_

The sharp metallic trill of her cell ringing nearby cut through the fog of Laurene slumber. She jerked awake and pressed the phone to her ear. “Hunt,” she muttered into it, her voice still heavy with sleep.

“We’ve got another one.... A tourist that went missing ten days ago. He was found near the Ice Caves.... I’ll text you the exact coordinates.”

She was suddenly wide awake. “I’m on my way there,” she said briskly.

McPherson took it for the dismissal that it was and hang up. She sat up on the bed running a hand over her face. The dawn light bathed the room in a mist of graying shadows. The window was cracked open allowing in a freshly humid waft of air. It had obviously rained and the showers had washed the sultry heat of the previous day off the concrete of the parking lot below. Alex stood by the half open window, smoking and looking outside listlessly.

Laurene wrapped the coverlet around her body, and padded to him to snatch the half smoked cigarette from between his fingers. Ignoring his glare, she took a drag of her own before returning it to him.

“I need to go in to work,” she said. “You know where the spare key is.”

“Of course,” he replied without much inflection.

They had done this before.

“Were you up long?” she asked.

“No, I only woke up about an hour ago.”

She didn’t comment. Alex struggled with insomnia and like her could have vicious nightmares sometimes. Anyway, she didn’t have time for this. It was quite a long drive to the Ice Caves and she needed to get there while the forensic team was still on sight. So she moved towards the bathroom without another word. He didn’t try to retain her or elaborate on what had disturbed his sleep. It was one of the things she liked about it. He didn’t require heart-to-hearts.

# # #

“Where’s Rachel?” Laurene inquired the second she jumped out of her RAM truck and was greeted by an expectant McPherson.

He gestured towards the pathologist in question. “Idaho called,” he said before she could walk away.

She turned to him patiently waiting for him to elaborate.

“They have three open cases that might be the same as ours,” he explained. There was twitchy note to his tone. “That makes eleven.”

“That we know of,” Laurene commented calmly. She knew what he was getting at.

McPherson swore. “How is it possible? No known serial killer is this prolific especially over such a short period of time.”

“My guess is that this guy has been active for far longer than we realize. Maybe he even moved around. So far he’s chosen low-risk victims, mostly homeless people, whose disappearances are hard to notice and rarely get reported. Any word from Washington?”

He shook his head ruefully. “Yeah, the BAU is short-staffed, in high demand and still reorganizing after being created in its present form only three years ago. They even have agents in Italy on some Mob case. We’re on our own for now.”

Laurene took a sip of her half-drunk cup of take-away coffee. “Well then we need to move quickly. So I’d better go see what Rachel has.”

This time when she attempted to saunter away, McPherson didn’t try and stop her.

“Laure,” Rachel said giving a small wave.

Laurene just nodded. “Is it like all the others?”

Rachel surveyed her critically. “Yes and no. The expression of horror on his face is pretty much the same but he also could’ve died from exposure to the elements. The chunks the wildlife tore out of his torso didn’t help, either. I’ll know more once I get him on my table.”

Laurene looked around. “Rachel, you’re from around here. Correct me if my map is wrong, but he’s a good distance from the actual Ice Caves.”

The medical examiner nodded. “Yeah.... Mountain Rescue thinks he got lost.”

Laurene shifted her gaze to the indigo-tinted peaks nearby. “A victim of opportunity,” she murmured.

“How can he be a victim of opportunity when there are no prints, no forensic traces left behind? Aside from the animal bites, there are no sign of violence on the body.”

“It looks like no signs of struggle either... no drag marks.... nothing... again! This is the same guy. I can feel it.”

Rachel’s expression was grim. “You can’t tell me all of this doesn’t freak you out at least a little.”

“I’m sure you’ve seen worse, Rachel.”

“Actually I haven’t. We have five... now six dead bodies and two people in a kind of coma the likes of which I didn’t even thought possible... and not so much as a clue as how this guy is killing them, let alone any viable leads.”

Laurene’s eyes perused the encroaching forest. “It’s really quiet, isn’t it? If you discount the busy crime scene, of course.”

“Yeah, almost unnaturally so.” Rachel frowned. “I’ve noticed it driving along the path over here.”

Laurene shrugged. “Maybe it’s just a feeling we have because of how bizarre this whole case is.... Anything else you have for me?”

The doctor shook her head. “Nope.... Actually, I do but it’s personal. You know, Jack and I are taking the kids to his parents to Connecticut for Memorial Day weekend.”

“My condolences.”

Rachel smiled wryly. “Thanks. Anyhow, this means our cabin in Tacoma Mountains will be available... if you want take your boyfriend there.”

Laurene shot her friend a pointed look as she started walking towards the forensic team, Rachel in tow. “First of all, I don’t even know if Alex is my boyfriend yet. We haven’t talked... about anything. And second of all, there’s a highly efficient serial killer around these woods and you want me to spend three days round here in some isolated cabin.”

“First off, our cabin is anything but isolated. You might find the spot too touristy, in fact. Secondly aren’t you a big, scary FBI agent who used to be in the Marines and likes to shoot high caliber guns? Finally you and your kinda, sorta, maybe, not really boyfriend haven’t had the relationship talk yet? Really, Laure?”

Laurene halted in her tracks. “We’re at a crime scene.”

“Look, you’ve been kind, maybe, sorta seeing this guy for six months now. You’re obviously past the one-night stand stage. Don’t you think you should talk about where you’re headed? If only to find out if he wasn’t an ax murderer back in England.”

“If he was, he’s not likely to tell me, is he?”

“Yes, but you’re an excellent interrogator. Besides, he’s got a British accent and this whole tall, dark and mysterious thing going for him. You don’t wanna him snapped away by some gal with fewer commitment issues, do you? I mean, are you two even exclusive?”

“I’ve no idea. We haven’t....”

“Talked, I know. You see why you ought to. Three days all by your lonesome in a mountain cabin is just what the doctor ordered... literally,” Rachel said pointing to her chest with a grin. “You can finally work out if he’s an ax murderer... or James Bond.”

Laurene laughed. “Alex’s bookish.... He takes Biochemistry classes at Seattle College and used to be a school teacher in Britain. He’s as far, far from any kind of spy imaginable.”

# # #

Laurene had not often been to her kinda, sorta, not really boyfriend’s place. She preferred the advantage of home turf and since he didn’t mind, they had fallen into a sort of routine on that matter. So now she stood before the door to his modest studio apartment, feeling stupid for being nervous. Heart-to-hearts had never been her forte. Alex had never asked for anything or pressed her into being more emotionally available but Rachel had a point: he was a bit of a catch and if Laurene really wanted him around, she would have to pluck up her non-existent emotional expertise and come out and say.

After some more hesitation and another round of calling herself silly in her head, she finally resorted to knocking. It took Alex a moment to open the door. His long, dark hair flew past his bony shoulders instead of being trapped in the usual ponytail. He wore a black long-sleeved button-down and matching black jeans that highlighted the ivory tones of his skin. His thin, pale lips curved into a tiny, not quite there smile that was the only, albeit slight indication, that he was glad to see her. Much like her, Alex didn’t reveal much. Laurene smiled back uncertainly.

Then she found herself standing in the middle of her apartment, leather jacket still on, staring around quite stupidly and still not having a clue as to what to say.

“I found an album you might like,” she said and held out the disc to him.

His reaction was strange: his onyx black eyes, darker than anyone’s she’d ever seen, went wide and round, filling with something uncomfortably like awe. It took him almost a full minute to respond.

“Thank you,” he said softly, turning his head to the side to avoid further eye-contact.

When he grasped the CD from her, the tips of their fingers touched. Laurene started, shaken as though by electric current, but he gave no outward reaction. He put the disc in his clearly second-hand yet well-maintained player.

Another thing she and Alex had in common was their mutual fondness for rock music, though he was too stuck in the 1960s and ‘70s for her taste. It was high time he joined the rest of the world in the 90s, she thought, as the first notes of Metallica’s _Fuel_ resounded in the small apartment. Alex was a minimalist and made no secret out of his limited income, which she found refreshing in a guy. She was fairly certain Alex had noted she out earned him but so far he hadn’t remarked on it.

She unzipped her jacket and sank into the beat-up couch. Alex offered her coffee.

“I’m interrupting something, am I not?” she said in lieu of reply eying the stack of open books on the desk in the corner. There were methodically strewn papers on the floor, too. She wondered how he could study in such a low light, given that the shades were drawn.

“I am not averse to taking a break,” he responded while running a finger absently down the bridge of his prominent Roman nose.

“Well, then, coffee would be nice.”

He disappeared into the tiny kitchenette to the left without another word.

_Go talk to him, you coward,_ she thought and got to her feet uneasily.

“One of my colleagues has a cabin up in the Tacoma Mountains,” she began as she walked in the kitchen where he was fiddling with a sluggish Mr. Coffee machine. She took a deep breath and leaned cautiously on the rickety counter. “It’s not supposed to be much but apparently it’s nice. She said she could loan it to me for the Memorial Day weekend since she’s going to visit her in-laws in Connecticut, anyway. I thought we could drive up there, you know, have a look around, see if we like it.”

He turned and apparently caught the question lurking unspoken in her speech. “All right,” he said mildly, his expression as unreadable as ever.

It couldn’t be that easy, could it?

“Alright? Alright then.” She bent and pecked him quickly on the lips. “I’ll pick you up on Friday after work… let’s say, sixish?”

He nodded once. “Very well.”

_Coward_ , she chided herself inwardly. She took another deep breath. “So you’re fine with us having a romantic weekend getaway?”

A dark eye-brow rose ominously.

Oh-uh!

“Is this why you invited me? Because you wish for us to be romantic?”

Her stomach settled back down again. “Oh, thank goodness you’re as bad at this as I am!”

He looked endearingly confused then his expression straightened into one of dismayed outrage. “There are few things I could be considered back at, Laurene,” he chastened in a voice she had no doubt he had been using on his students back when he had been a teacher in England. “Though I am not entirely certain what _this_ that you’re mentioning even represents.”

She chuckled, which only served to deepen his scowl, then gestured between the two of them awkwardly. “This… us… our relationship… whatever we have going on between us. That’s what I mean by this. We’ve never really talked about it?”

“Do you require such a conversation?”

He began to pour coffee into two chipped, off blue mugs.

“It’s what people do, don’t they? We’ve been going out for six months already….”

“We have hardly ever gone out, Laurene.”

She took the mug from him noting the twinkle in his eyes. She grinned and blew over the surface of the steaming black liquid. They both took it dark. “Well… I really like you and….”

“Obviously.”

He had an interesting way of saying certain words, enunciating as though splitting them by syllables. Obviously was often such a word.

“Look, I’m bad at this feelings expressing and discussing thing. During the screaming match that ended my most serious relationship to date, the words _emotionally stunted witch_ were thrown around a lot.”

“You are not witch,” he said with startling sobriety.

Laurene smiled grimly. “But I am emotionally stunted!”

The eye-brow went up again. “You might not be the only one.” He indicated that they should return to the main room where they both sat down on his couch.

She took a careful sip of her coffee. “Maybe it’s the way I grew up. I never knew my father.”

“You were fortunate then.”

Their eyes met and held for a moment. There was a story there, she could tell.

“My Mom… she never laid a finger on me but she had a way of saying things that stuck…. I can still hear them in my head sometimes. She was on one or other drug for most of my childhood and she kept bringing home increasingly violent men. I was out of there as soon as I turned eighteen and straight to the Marine Corps. I knew it was my only shot of going to college.”

He looked into his mug, his face taking on a far-away quality, one pale finger tapping gently on the rim. “My father was the violent one,” he said after a while. “He drank often and to the point that we often went without food for days because the little money he made went to the nearest pub. At first, he only yelled. Then he started slapping her. A slap became fist breaking her jaw. Soon fists were not enough and he picked up the whip. He used it on both of us until his arm gave out. And slowly… ever so slowly she began to disappear. Sometimes she would stare ahead without a word for days on end. I doubt she even knew I existed at such times. So I learned to cook my own food that I would share with her when I managed to convinced her to eat, and wore her old clothes when I realized nobody would buy me new ones. He beat her to death when I was seventeen and away at school. Afterwards he did the only good thing he had ever done in his entire life: he hang himself in the coal shed.”

Her hand made its way to his in his lap. She squeezed his fingers firmly and they twitched beneath her touch.

“I have never before told anyone about this… not as such,” he admitted, looking painfully vulnerable.

His hand turned in hers and he treaded their fingers together. She leaned over and brushed her lips against his.

“I think we’re gonna be just fine,” she said as she drew back.

Another eye-brow lift later, he spoke. By then he was already beginning to look more composed and the sardonic touch had already returned to his visage.

“Laurene?” he began, his voice slightly lowered, which only served to make it deeper. “Thank you for the CD.”

She paused to listen. _Unforgiven II_ was playing. She winked at him. “I thought you and Metallica might hit it off.”

# # #

Laurene stretched under the slightly scratchy covers of Alex’s bed, relishing the smell of frying eggs and bacon that permeated the room. Her back cracked uncomfortably. That was another reason why she avoided Alex’s apartment. His bed was both cramped and hard but she didn’t want to be the kind of girlfriend who dictated what kind of furniture her boyfriend had at his own place. She rolled from the bed and snagged a black T-shirt from the tall, worn-down Ikea style set of drawers.

Alex was in the kitchen lading scrambled eggs, bacon, linked sausage and toast onto two mismatched plates. He was wearing the world’s most nondescript, grey pajamas that were just slightly oversized as if it had taken him time to get used to the US clothing sizes. She wrapped her arms around him from behind and buried her nose in the side of his neck that was covered in a rough patch of keloid tissue he had never explained to her.

“Mmm, I love a man who can cook and also doesn’t worry about cholesterol,” she said.

“Of all the things that might kill me, I never thought to include breakfast among them.”

She laughed and took a seat at his tiny, folding kitchen table. “You got a point there. I mean, I was shot at. I think I’m safe having some bacon.” She snatched a nice, browned strip and crunched it between her teeth.

His lips twisted sardonically as he poured them both coffee.

“There’s something else I’ve been meaning to tell you,” she said as they were clearing away the dirty dishes together.

He raised an eye-brow as he waited for her to elaborate.

Right then! “Have you given any more thought to getting a driving license in the US?”

“Are all the buses in Seattle about to break down at the same time?”

“Ha!” She started washing the plates then gave them to him to dry them up. “I’m not supposed to talk about it outside work but I’ve this really creepy case and I’d feel better if you weren’t lurking around bus stops at night.”

“I do not lurk round bus stations at night,” he quipped in what she hoped was only mock outrage. “I wait for the proper public transportation vehicle to take me from where I am to where I aim to be.”

She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.” She tossed the paper towel she had used to dry her hands into the garbage can. “What if I helped you get a gun permit?”

His dark eyes glittered, while his upper lip curled into a disbelieving sneer. “You wish for me to obtain a weapon?”

“I know we come from very different gun cultures but there’s nothing wrong with having the means to defend yourself. I’m thinking something small-caliber, nothing too flashy, easy to use.”

“And I’m thinking I neither want nor need a weapon of any kind.”

She sighed heavily. “I have to go. I need to get home and change before I head for work but…. We’re not done discussing this. Just… be careful, okay? This thing freaked out my friend Rachel who’s been a pathologist for twenty years. Frankly, it’s freaking me out too.”

He stepped closer to her studying with a darkening expression. “I would ask if there was anything I could do to assist you but all things considered….”

“You _can_ help me,” she stated. “You can take my advice so I wouldn’t have to worry about you too.”

“You are attempting to manipulate me.”

She grinned and pressed a quick kiss to his lips. “If you can tell, then I can’t be doing a very good job.”

He smirked, triumph lurking into the deep, dark depths of his eyes.

# # #

“I thought the BAU couldn’t spare anyone right now,” said Laurene getting up from behind her desk to shake hands with the newcomer, a tall, lanky, sandy-haired man dressed in the stereotypical FBI agent suit.

“SA William Kowalski,” he said as he shook her hand. “I’m not from the BAU. Major Crime wanted to see what you have.”

“SAC Laurene Hunt,” she replied. “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure what we have but the escalation is disturbing. Our pathologist just completed the autopsy of the latest possible victim. We can go see her together, if you want, and talk on the way.”

He only nodded his confirmation.

“It started about six weeks ago,” she began explaining while they walked out of her office side by side. “An informant told me he thought something was attacking the homeless people living in the area near Discovery and Schmitz Preserve Park. Don’t let the names fool you, those are, in fact, heavily forested areas.”

“Something, not someone?”

“Well, accounts vary. You have to understand, some of these people have mental issues or are under the influence most of the time. Some of the descriptions turned pretty outlandish. Claims that the stars and the moon vanished from the skies and that the temperature dropped steeply right before the attacks. That all happiness went from the world. Some of the witnesses rambled on like this for hours. But the bodies are very real. Nine of them, two people in a coma that doctors say it’s worse than fourth degree but are at a loss when it comes to explaining it. It’s as if their whole metabolism had just stopped.”

“Didn’t anyone manage to get a look at the unsub?”

Laurene shook her head as they entered the cool, dim-lit hovel of the morgue. “No, it’s like the guy’s a ghost or something. Ah, Rachel, hi. This is SA Kowalski from Major Crime, from DC.”

“Rachel Dobbs,” the pathologist said.

“What have you got, Rachel?”

“Same as all the others…. No clue as to how he’s killing them. If I had to guess I’d say poison but the tox screens are all negative.” Rachel pulled one of the immaculate steel drawers open unveiling the body. “There’s something new, though.” She lifted the victim’s right hand. The fingernails were torn and the skin was heavily bruised. “I think he tried to get away. From the looks of it, he crawled his way through the rubble.”

Laurene felt cold prickle at the back of her neck. Rachel had been right back in the mountains: there was something very wrong about this case. She thought of Alex waiting for the bus in a darkened, lonely stop at night and had a hard time holding in a shudder. “He must’ve been really desperate if he did this to himself just to escape.”

# # #

Bob Petrie parked his car in his usual spot in front of the chemical supplies store he’d owned for the past nearly twenty-six years. The once bright yellow firm was beginning to peel but the loyal customer base Bob had cultivated over time didn’t care. The shop was called Petrie Dish, a name Bob had come up with himself and which he found rather ingenious.

He went in through the back and into the claustrophobic office where the coffee machine was already bubbling despite the early hour. Alex was predictably already in looking over some order forms. It was just Bob’s luck that his best employee was vastly overqualified for the job and therefore due to leave it as soon as something better came up.

“Morning, Alex,” said Bob gruffly fishing for his oversized mug in one of the cabinets. It had _world’s best granddad_ inscribed on it. “How’s it going?”

Alex grunted something in reply but Bob didn’t pay him much attention. Alex wasn’t rude per se; he just wasn’t a people’s person.

“Any plans for Memorial Day weekend?” asked Bob absently as he stirred cream and sugar into his coffee. “I’ve been meaning to ask you. Do you have anything like Memorial Day in England?”

Alex didn’t raise his eyes from the papers he was studying with a slight frown. “I suppose Poppy Day would qualify.”

“Huh? What’s that?”

Alex studiously kept his gaze on his forms, his voice coming out entirely flat as he elaborated. “It’s a day of remembrance for those who died during the First World War.”

Bob nodded, thinking it over. “My old man fought in the Pacific during the Second World War. The stories he was telling us, especially about Guadalcanal…. War kills people in more ways than one, he used to say. You never come back home whole, even if you survive. Something of your gets left behind on the battlefield.”

Suddenly Alex’s eyes snapped to Bob’s face. The younger man was paler than his usual, staring at his boss stonily, his lips pressed closer together. Bob realized this made for a terrible choice of subject for idle morning chitchat.

“Anyhow…. If you’re not doing anything for Memorial Day, you’re welcome over to my place. We’re having a barbecue Saturday afternoon. It’s just me and Gail and maybe one or two friends from the neighborhood. The kids have their own thing so they’re not coming.”

“Thank you,” began Alex coolly. “But Laurene and I have other plans.”

“Laurene, eh? That your girl?” Seeing Alex frown again he rushed to explain himself. “I mean, your girlfriend. I don’t think I’ve heard you mention her before. It’s good that you’re putting down roots over here if you wanna stay. How long have you been on our side of the pond, anyway?”

“Just two years at the beginning of June,” said Alex plainly.

“Time flies when you’re having fun, doesn’t it?” replied Bob with a grin. “You thinking about becoming a citizen?”

“Perhaps.”

Bob held up his coffee mug in a kind of salute. “Ya lemme know if you need any help, will you? You know how bureaucrats are…. Of course, you do, they wouldn’t recognize your studies back in England and you were a teacher there for crying out loud! Where did you say you taught?”

“At a boarding school in Scotland.”

“Ah! Chemistry, right?”

Alex merely nodded abandoning the forms to pour himself a cup of coffee too.

“Were the students any good?”

“Not really.”

Bob chuckled. “I guess some things are universal.”

Alex’s lips twisted in what could almost be a sneer.

TBC


	2. The Ghosts of the Past

“Alex… Alex….”

The man on Meredith’s right lifted his face from where he had it nearly pressed it to the thick tome he was leafing through. Beetle black eyes gazed at her with mild curiosity.

“You wouldn’t happen to be able to borrow me your notes from Clinical Biochemistry, would you? I’ve missed a few of the last couple of lectures. You know how college life can be.”

He pursed pale rosy lips that were strangely delicate for a man. Then he bent over and retrieved a stack of papers from the well-worn, black briefcase resting at his feet. They were covered in a neat, spidery scrawl in black ink. Apparently, he had a whole aesthetic going on. He held them out to her without a word.

“Thanks,” she said with a smile. “You’re a lifesaver.”

“I require them back by this time next week,” he said mildly, sounding almost bored.

His voice was deeper than she recalled, thick like molten dark chocolate and just as rich. And that British accent only made it better.

“Sure thing,” she replied, smiling even wider. She grabbed the notes from him then ripped a page from her own notebook on which she quickly scribbled her phone number. “This is my cell number. Why don’t you call me some time to remind me to bring back your notes?”

“Are you liable to forget this easily in only one week?”

She laughed. “No, I just thought we could go out for coffee sometime… you know, as my way of saying thanks for the notes.”

“In that case I should be owned rivers of coffee by nearly everyone in our year.”

She giggled at his deadpan delivery. “So how about it? Friday at 7 maybe? I know a great place just off campus?”

He lifted his gaze from where it had been studying her phone number as though it were a particularly difficult puzzle. “I’m afraid that wouldn’t be appropriate.”

“Is this an age gap thing? Because I’m 20. I’m legal just about anywhere in the world.”

He fixed her with a piercing stare. “I’m not available to go to coffee with anyone regardless of age,” he said flatly.

“Oops, you got a girlfriend,” she realized, deflating quickly. “Well, no harm in asking.” She held up his notes. “You’ll get them back next week, I promise.”

He nodded and seeing as the professor came in and took his place at the front of the lecture hall, Alex’s attention was off Meredith and drawn to him like a magnet.

Careful to drape her long, blonde hair over her face like a curtain, Meredith extricated her cell phone from her bag and texted a few of her friends who were sitting one row down in order to give the privacy necessary to make her move.

_Bummer! Tall, dark & mysterious with a British accent is taken._

# # #

“Cokeworth? You don’t talk much about it. It sounds positively Dickensian.”

He shrugged spearing at a piece of cheese in his salad with his fork. “It is positively Dickensian.”

“Ouch! I grew up in Bed-Stuy so I can’t say I don’t relate. How’s Cokeworth now?”

“Mostly deserted.”

“Where is it exactly? I hate to fit the cliché of the ignorant American but I really don't know much about the geography of England.”

He looked up at her then. “You're anything but ignorant. Cokeworth is in the Northern Midlands, close to Nottingham. It's so close, in fact, it's practically a suburb.”

“Ha! Nottingham.”

He glared at her in warning. She had lured him into watching an endless and endlessly dull Robin Hood film by claiming he bore more than a passing resemblance to the actor playing the Sheriff of Nottingham.

“For the record, Alan Rickman's gorgeous. You should be flattered I think you look like him.”

“I would be more flattered if you stopped insisting I watch terrible films.”

“Oh, yeah, the movie was pretty bad but Rickman was hilarious in it.”

He made to make a dismissive gesture with his hand when something drew his attention. She had had a strange, distracted look on her face when she had come to meet him which he had attributed to whatever bothered her about her new case. But upon closer inspection he noticed that her pupils were also widely dilated and though her speech was in no way impaired, there something off, glazed about her eyes.

“Your pupils are dilated,” he said softly before he could stop himself. For a moment Alexander Nettlemore shrunk and dissolved within him, and he became another man, another creature altogether.

“It must be because I’m physically attracted to you,” she said cheekily.

The neon light filling the diner sickly, its pallor tinted blue. Perhaps that was what had caused the effect. He shook his head, internally chiding himself for thinking with the ghosts of his past. He tried to smile in reply hoping it didn’t come off as a nasty grimace. The notion was ridiculous. He had picked Seattle in no small part because it was not a known wizarding activity hub. Who would be obliviating an FBI agent here of all places and why?

No, the man he had been was dead. He had bled to death on the floor of a dilapidated hovel by a school in the Scottish Highlands. He was Alex Nettlemore now.

# # #

“Mr. Kowalski,” Hermione began politely.

“Captain Kowalski,” he corrected sharply. _Captain_ Kowalski was a tall, sandy blond man dressed in a set of austere, dove grey robes. His overall demeanor was grim and he was visibly peeved at having to deal with Percy and Hermione. “The Auror Commissioner, not to mention the president want me to extend you every courtesy, Miss Granger… Mr. Weasley. After all, you, Miss Granger, are the close friend of the Savior of the Wizardkind and a war hero. And you, Mr. Weasley, are a war hero in your right, not to mention the brother of the other close friend of Harry Potter. However, your wizarding wars were an internal British affair. If Harry Potter saved anyone, it was the witches and wizards of Great Britain. The rest of our world had no part in your civil wars. Miraculously enough, might I add, as your small island is way too fond of exporting its problems worldwide, which is why we’re here. I’m no diplomat, I’m an Auror. And I have at least, eleven dementor victims strewn all over the Pacific Northwest, and an FBI investigation that’s extending as we speak.”

“Isn’t your Federal Bureau of Covert Vigilance and No-Maj Obliviation notoriously wand happy? That should put an end to the Muggle police inquiry.” Percy had apparently decided not to be diplomatic either.

Hermione gave him a pointed look, resisting the urge to kick his shin under the table. The head of MACUSA’s Department of Magical Law Enforcement had touted Kowalski as their best Auror. Besides, he was already lead on the investigation.

“The Federal Bureau of Investigation is not your British Muggle police,” retorted Kowalski imperiously. “They are a large, countrywide agency with enormous resources. The Seattle field office has already notified DC of their case, they work with local law enforcement and they got the state police of Oregon and Idaho involved as well. They even asked the Canadian authorities if they have similar cases. It’s impossible to obliviate everyone involved because there is no way of finding out exactly how many people know. Assuming that we could obliviate everyone, there’ll still be a paper trail left. But that’s not the worst part. No, the worst part is the digital trail. Modern technology changed the game. We live in an era of blood tests, DNA and information backed up on devices most of us have no idea they exist let alone know to manipulate enough to delete everything No-Majes could gather on us. Our secret has never been in a more fragile position. If you think the mobs of old with their pitchforks and torches were bad, you should see those who have automatic weapons.”

Hermione made herself smile. “Captain Kowalski, I’m Muggle-born, as in my parents are No-Maj as you say. I’m well aware of the existence of all those technologies you mentioned. I realize the threat they pose to the Statute of Secrecy. However, and forgive me for asking this, but how can you sure it’s dementors we are dealing with in this instance?”

Kowalski’s sneer was as unpleasant as his glare was cold. He lifted a bony hand, fingers splayed, and waved it through the air as if he were attempting to extract something from his opposite arm that was bent at the elbow. A pale mist formed in a sphere that expanded to a kind of film erected above the table between them. Typed sheets of papers swirled on the strange film, the writing on them clearly legible.

“Eye-witness accounts,” he said coolly. His fingers twitched and the images flickered to gruesome photographs of dead bodies the faces of which were frozen in telling horror. Then more sheets of paper followed. “Autopsy reports… and finally, the report of the agent in charge. I made contact with her under the guise of an envoy of the Major Crime division of the FBI and obliviated her and her pathologist colleague shortly after we spoke.” The pages of the report dissolved in order to be replaced by a face and torso image of a dark-skinned woman with a rigid posture and a no-nonsense attitude. She had straight, jet black hair that reached only to her strong, square jawline, and piercing light hazel eyes. “Special Agent in Charge, Laurene Hunt. It’s her case. She’ll be forty in August. She’s a former Marine, she participated in Desert Storm, got a Silver Star, and received an honorable discharge after which she joined the FBI where she’s had a most distinguished career until now. She’s tough as nails. Make no mistake, her instincts are sharp enough for her to realize there’s something very wrong with all of this.” He paused for effect. “Oh, and speaking of that modern technology you know so well, Miss Granger, No-Majes may not be able to see dementors with their own eyes but we still have no idea whether or not they show up on camera. Just because they can’t perceive dementors, it doesn’t mean they can’t photograph or film them. Has this ever occurred to anyone in your Ministry of Magic when you let them out of that prison?”

“Captain Kowalski, with all due respect, having dementors guard the prisoners of Azkaban was inhumane,” said Hermione with as much calm as she could muster. She had been instrumental in the reform of the famous prison, working closely with Kingsley for that goal. “Many went mad almost immediately.”

“So you sicced them on unsuspecting No-Majes because that’s so much more humane.”

“Mr. Kowalski, our presence here is entirely voluntary. I must say I fully resent what you are implying.” Percy’s face was as red as his hair. “The British Ministry of Magic is firmly dedicated to the protection of Muggles from any kind of magical harm. We simply didn’t allow the dementors to return to Azkaban after they had freed all prisoners and joined the most powerful Dark wizard in history. He was the one who was truly intent on persecuting Muggles and anyone associated with him. Surely you must have heard of his crimes even if they were only an internal British matter.”

“That’s all very commendable, Mr. Weasley, but where did you think the dementors would go once you kept them from returning to their only home? Did you believe that they would go sunbathing on a beach in the Caribbean only to send out the occasional postcard?”

“We assumed they would retract to a cold, decaying place as they are known to favor,” said Hermione. “A deserted island like Azkaban, far away from anyone they could harm. They have similarly existed there for two hundred years from the death of this alleged creator until the ministry decided to turn the fortress into a prison.”

Kowalski leaned back in his chair, waving his wand lazily to disperse the film that had until that moment had still held the face of Laurene Hunt. “That sounds like a lot of wishful thinking to me, Miss Granger.”

“How do we know these are the dementors of Azkaban and not a local, American colony?” asked Percy belligerently, still red in the face.

Hermione winced.

Kowalski’s scowl got worse, his gaze fixed on Hermione’s eyes in a way that made her barely able to refrain from squirming in her seat. She had the distinct impression he was staring right into the restless thoughts comingling in her head.

“Because there’s no record of dementors existing on American soil… until now,” said Kowalski acidly.

Hermione turned her head discreetly, breaking eye-contact with him. The Ministry didn’t know all that much about the acerbic Auror but she decided not to take the risk of him being a Legilimens.

“The No-Majes are particularly vulnerable to them,” continued Kowalski. “There are people who live on the fringe of their society, people nobody will miss, like the homeless. These are a real Smorgasbord for the dementors. It was sheer luck that Agent Hunt connected the killings. If it had been someone less competent, they could’ve gone on for years and years until somebody noticed something was off. Either way, it’s only going to get worse. It’s Memorial Day on Monday. The forested area near Seattle will be full of people looking to spend their long weekend. The excitement is bound to attract more dementor attacks.”

“Memorial Day?” Percy inquired.

“It’s an American Muggle holiday dedicated to commemorating soldiers who died on the battlefield,” Hermione hastened to explain before Kowalski could. “I’m assuming you’ll have Aurors patrolling the area you suspect of being subject to dementors activity.”

“And I’m assuming you’d want to tag along,” interjected Kowalski, sounding none too pleased at the idea.

“The both of us have experience fighting off dementors during the final battle of the last wizarding war,” said Percy superiorly.

Kowalski looked less than impressed. “Good, then I can tell my Aurors to focus on doing their job instead of trying to keep our distinguished British guest from having their souls sucked out of them.” The misty film reappeared above the table. “This is Mount Rainier or Tacoma. It’s the closest national park to Seattle and it’ll be bustling with No-Majes at the weekend so this is where we’ll be concentrating our patrolling. I do hope you brought hiking shoes. We won’t be doing any Apparating while on patrols. These touristy spots can be more crowded on holidays than the cities themselves. There’s no way I’m gonna risk even more exposure.”

# # #

He stubbed his cigarette in the cracked clay ashtray on the window sill before he moved to the small, pawnshop quality stereo on his bedside cabinet. He grasped the album cover from where it lay tossed onto the tangled bedsheets to remind himself of the name of the song being currently played: _Unforgiven II_. If only Laurene knew just how appropriate her gift had been! That was the crux of the matter, though. He didn’t want her to know, he realized. He was no longer that man. That man had been dead for two years.

He sat down on the edge of the bed thinking. Did even want to be that man again? Did he even want to be a wizard again? No, there was no point in entertaining such thoughts. Going back was a practical impossibility. Lately, however, he had begun to suspect he wouldn’t go back, even if he could. He had grown to like being Alex Nettlemore.

Alex Nettlemore had no masters, didn’t endure physical pain on a nearly daily basis, and had only one secret to keep instead of a hundred. Instead, he had a tiny, ratty apartment that was blessedly free of ghosts of any kind, a boss he could almost mistake for a friend, an almost, sort of girlfriend, whom, he was fairly certain, he could also count as a friend, and the ability to speak about what him being bullied in school without being accused of holding onto old grudges, about his father and his poor upbringing. There were no appearances to keep here. He also had memories and nightmares but those couldn’t be helped. They simply followed him everywhere.

Seattle hadn’t been supposed to last. It had been supposed to be merely a stop along the way. But in order to survive as a Muggle he had needed a job. At the Petrie Dish, Bob had remarked that he seemed to be vastly overqualified to sell chemical supplies and inquired after his studies. So he had lied and told him his studies of Chemistry back in England hadn’t been recognized in the US. It was Bob who had advised him to go to the university in America and when he had countered that he couldn’t afford the exorbitant local tuition; it was again Bob who had suggested a community college.

Then there was Laurene. Seeing an FBI agent was a tremendous risk. His documents were flawless, having been made by a magical forger who created Muggle identities for the purebloods. Acting on Dumbledore’s orders, he had ordered them after Voldemort’s return to facilitate his escape into the Muggle world in case his true loyalties were discovered. Nobody but the Headmaster and he had known about Alexander Nettlemore. The ID had come in handy when he had unexpectedly survived Nagini’s attack. He had burnt down the Shrieking Shack to cover up for the lack of a body, certain it could be written off as a consequence of the battle.

As unlikely and unwanted as his survival had been, he was still unwilling to spend the rest of his undoubtedly long life in Azkaban. Regardless of his true allegiance, he had no delusions that he wouldn’t be tried and convicted as a Death Eater. The truth of the murder he had committed was incontrovertible. But at the end of the day, he was still a Slytherin and Slytherins were, above all, survivors. So he had chosen to save his skin like a true Slytherin and disappeared from the wizarding world, hoping to hide among the Muggles of the United States for a while until it would be safe to move on.

His circumstances had not been conducive to having someone like Laurene in his life. But it had been she who had pursued him after a chance encounter. He had sunk into the affair fully expecting it to be a short-lived fling. He had had a few of those in the time between Lily’s marriage and Voldemort’s threatening her life. After that, his every waking moment had been dedicated to protecting her and then her son.

But here was now—six months later and still with Laurene who wanted them to go steady, as the Americans would say. It was a first for him…and more than mildly troubling. He didn’t love Laurene. He doubted he was capable of loving anyone who was not Lily Evans. He liked Laurene well enough, though. And it was easy being with her, another absolute first for him.

Shaking his head as if he could calm the agitated swirl of his thoughts this way, he hopped into the shower. Afterward, he bound his long hair in a bun, pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, and went into his kitchenette to make coffee. He stared at the portion of the slightly chipped paint on the wall above the sink. He couldn’t see it but he knew it was there. He could sense it, one of the only three relics of his previous life that he had kept. He should have destroyed it long ago but always put it off. It was the only thing he had left from his mother and though at forty, he should have been well past such sentimentality, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instinctively a wall rose in his mind. Closing his eyes, he willed it back down. Alex Nettlemore was an average man who had emigrated from England to the United States two years back.

He had no walls in his head. He certainly couldn’t do magic. Because magic didn’t exist. And dead men didn’t start a new life on another continent.

He filled a mug with coffee and went to the small office space he had organized in a corner of his studio apartment. The scent of the hot, flagrant liquid had begun to revive him even before his first gulp. Opening one of his textbooks, he began to read. Not that he wasn’t practically guaranteed an A already. His professors at Seattle College went on and on about the quality of his lab work, his reports, and his midterms. Knowledge was knowledge, and his intellect lent itself to Chemistry and Biology just as well as it had to Potions and Dark Magic.

It was all the praise he had dreamt of at Hogwarts. Now it was being handed to him on a silvery platter in the very Muggle world he had fought so hard to escape ever since he was eleven.

TBC


	3. Past and Present

Alex turned up his collar against the unexpected chill in the air of the May evening. A second later he realized he was being watched. There was nothing concrete that alerted him to it but years of well-honed instincts had the hairs on the back of his neck rise up in warning. He turned, sniffing slightly, all his senses kicking into overdrive. Instinctively he patted his right side but instead of encountering the heavy folds of his robes, his fingers slipped on the leather of his jacket. His wand was buried in the wall of his kitchen miles and miles away.

“Stay back,” warned Laurene, her voice brisk and businesslike like he never heard it before.

A strong palm was thrust against his chest and he was shoved back unceremoniously. It was down to his still excellent reflexes that he stayed on his feet instead of stumbling on his back to the ground. Laurene stepped in front of him. Her left arm was raised, her gun clenched between her fingers and pointed at the darkened mouth of the alley.

A loud hoot pierced the night air. The large owl flew uncomfortably close to his face. He thought it was a great horned one. There was nothing in her beak as far as he could see but that didn’t mean anything. Owls sensed magic in people. It had been drawn to him on instinct.

“Blasted things,” he muttered heatedly under his breath.

Laurene holstered her gun. “I can’t believe I always shot a fucking owl,” she said.

He winced. “Language!” The word made it out on impulse before his brain could catch up to his scolding teacher’s tone.

Laurene laughed breezily. “School’s out, Professor Nettlemore, but if you wanna, we can have a teacher-student role play later.” She sauntered back to him, one arm wrapping firmly around his middle, as he leaned heavily against his side.

“That’s wildly inappropriate, Special Agent Hunt,” he retorted, his tone more biting than it was intended. The experience had rattled him more than he cared to admit.

She wasn’t insulted, though. Instead, she slapped him on the behind and rather soundly too. He froze, unable to believe what had just happened.

“That’s in no way a refusal,” she commented dryly. “Don’t worry, Mr. Stiff Englishman. I’ll knock that stick out of your ass yet.” When he didn’t reply, she went on. “Sorry for the shove and the gun. I guess this case has me more on edge than I thought.”

It was true. He had practiced Legilimency for so many years he could no more turn it off now than he could switch off his whole brain. He caught the random thoughts of the people around him all the time even without eye contact. And he had made ample eye contact with Laurene tonight. He couldn’t see the details of the case that had her so harassed but he got the general feeling it inspired. A sense of wrongness mixed in with concern. Some of it was aimed at him.

He gingerly slid an arm across her back as they walked to her car. The way she touched him—often and without hesitation—still unsettled him at times. He had rarely been touched without violent intent. Before, in his other life. But now he was surrounded by people who touched him freely and benevolently. Bob, the owner of the chemical supplies store he worked at, who clapped him on the back and kept wanting to shake his hand. His professors at Seattle College who sometimes added a brief back clap to their words of praise. And Laurene…. Laurene who had just pushed him out of what she had thought was harm’s way.

He climbed into Laurene’s car quietly. There was cold sweat on his nape. Laurene worried about him. She wanted to know him safe for no other reason that she cared for him. There was nothing in it for her in his continued survival. He couldn’t remember anyone other than Lily ever defending him. And even Lily had never jumped between him and danger. When he had come back in pain after enduring one of the Dark Lord’s whims, Dumbledore’s first concern had always been to stop him from going to Madam Pomfrey. As if he hadn’t already fully understood the crucial importance of secrecy.

The orange lights of the city zoomed past his window as he stared outside. Journey’s _Wheel in the Sky_ was playing at low volume in the suddenly constricting interior of the car.

“You’re quiet,” observed Laurene. “I’m really sorry. I overreacted. I didn’t mean to startle you. I had the feeling we were being watched, some gut instinct I sometimes get, and I leaped into action without thinking. It’s just that it’s very easy for me to slip into combat mode. Like second nature. I went into the Marines when I was 18 then the Bureau…. There was no in-between for me…. Alex, are you listening?”

“Yes,” he responded absently. “It’s fine. You needn’t worry.”

“Needn’t I?” she parroted. “Look, Seattle’s crime rate might not be horrifying but it’s still not the idyllic Scottish Highlands.”

He wanted to laugh but reined it in. He didn’t want her to know. It wasn’t the magic that he meant to keep a secret. He didn’t want her to know he was the very thing she was chasing: a murderer.

# # #

Hermione pulled a chair by the fireplace before she dropped a pinch of Floo powder into the flames.

“Hello, ‘Mione,” said Ron brightly his head popping from the flames just as she sat down. “How’s New York?”

Hermione sighed. “I wish I knew. The president of MACUSA organized a formal welcome for me and Percy then we were immediately ushered to the Woolworth Building. I’ve got the distinct impression they didn’t want us hovering around local Muggles. What did they expect? That we’d climb up the Statue of Liberty and start yelling about witches and wizards?”

Harry’s head popped next to Ron’s in the green blaze. “Is it true what MACUSA claims? Are there really dementors from Azkaban in America?”

“It would seem so,” answered Hermione glumly. “Captain Kowalski sure gave me and Percy an earful.”

“He’s the one who signed that report MACUSA sent over to the Ministry, isn’t it?” asked Harry.

Hermione nodded. “He was less than hospitable. He accused us of exporting our problems worldwide.”

“Did you tell him we didn’t exactly ship the dementors over there?” prompted Ron in an annoyed tone of voice.

“What I tried to do was keep this from becoming an international incident. The Director of Magical Security might’ve been friendly on the surface but she made a few veiled threats of taking this before the International Confederation of Wizards and freezing mutual relations.”

“It’s not our fault,” Ron all but shouted. “We didn’t even know the dementors were over there or how they got across the ocean.”

“That’s not helping,” muttered Harry. “If anything, it makes us look worse. We prevented them from returning to Azkaban and then lost track of them. It appears as though we had no failsafe in place… in case they went on and attacked someone.”

Hermione’s stomach gave an uncomfortable lurch. She was already regretting the rich food she had indulged in at the formal reception the president of MACUSA had organized in honor of his British guests. “It would be if that wasn’t true. But we didn’t take any kind of preventive measures! We just let the dementors go. Now they seem to be wreaking havoc on another continent. Nine Muggles are dead; two are in a vegetative state with their souls sucked out of them. What’s worse, this is turning into a threat to our secrecy. There’s an ongoing FBI investigation and Kowalski said something that got me thinking.”

“Oh, really?” said Ron tartly. “What did he say?”

“He reckons dementors might show up on Muggle camera.”

Harry gasped. “I never thought about it that way but I suppose they could, couldn’t they? What are you going to do now?”

“Kowalski wants us to patrol the sights near the most recent attacks. There’s a holiday in the United States this weekend. He’s afraid of a blood bath and frankly so am I.”

“Say these are our dementors and they are indeed killing Muggles over there, what are we going to do with them?” inquired Ron, all sarcasm leached out of his voice and replaced now with nerves. “You and Percy can’t exactly shove them into a box and card them over here. Even if you could, I don’t suppose they’d stay locked up. They’d still go looking for people to feed on, Muggles and witches and wizards alike.”

Hermione shook her head. “I don’t know. We need to do more research on dementors. I’ve already alerted the department back home to inform the Minister and look into it further. But so far it doesn’t look good. I can’t do anything from over here. They’ve never had dementors in America before. They’ve got less information on them than we do.”

“The Americans are going to skin us for this,” said Harry darkly.

Hermione couldn’t help but agree.

“It could be worse,” began Ron then paused. “No, it couldn’t. You’re stuck there with Percy too. How much have you already heard about the proposed change to the international standard for broomsticks?”

“Actually, not that much,” replied Hermione. “Mostly he just gushed about how his star is certainly on the rise again within the Department for International Magic Cooperation seeing as he was entrusted with this delicate assignment in America.”

Ron scoffed. “If he does become Minister, he might have to kill him just to shut him up.”

Hermione grinned. “Does George know you’re stealing his jokes?”

“That depends. Are you going to tell him?”

They were interrupted by a knock on the door. They hastily said their goodbyes and Hermione went to answer. She found Kowalski on the threshold to her hotel room. His expression was grim.

“It just got worse,” he said.

# # #

McPherson poked his head through the door to Laurene’s office. “We’ve just got word from Canada,” he informed. “They have five similar cases… going back three months.”

Laurene leapt to her feet. “It started there.”

McPherson closed the door in his wake.

“We have to talk to the RCMP, see if they’ll have us over first thing after Memorial Day. Maybe we can coordinate something.” She took the stack of papers he extended her. “Show them what we already have. I might not be much but it shows them we have every intention of cooperating. I’ll badger DC some more with this. We need a profiler yesterday!” She paused. “McPherson… you worked in Seattle PD, right?” She spoke through his nod of confirmation. “Talk to your buddies who are still on the force while I try to get through to the Captain… and then Mountain Rescue. We need to set up patrols in the mountains for Memorial Day weekend. I don’t wanna hand this guy an opportunity to snatch another victim… or more. Then gather everyone around. I want to make sure at least our side understands the need to be discreet. The more people know about it, the more it becomes only a matter of time until the press gets word of this and they’ll have a field day with it. Let’s do some preemptive damage control!”

McPherson nodded and left. There was an uncomfortable knot at the mouth of Laurene’s stomach. She spoke to the police captain and Mountain Rescue then pulled out her personal cell phone.

“The Petrie Dish. Bob Petrie speaking,” said a voice with a Midwestern accent in her ear.

“May I speak to Alex Nettlemore? You can tell him it’s Laurene.”

“Alex, it’s your girl,” she heard the owner of the chemical supplies store call in what he probably thought was a stage voice.  
  


Laurene smiled, feeling her stomach settle a bit. It had been a while since she had been someone’s girl. It was nice. Like a post of warmth in the bleakness senseless death had caused.

“Hi, Alex. I’m sorry but I’m afraid we’ll have to have a change of plans. We can’t go up the mountain on Friday. I just can’t get out of the office. But we’ll leave first thing Saturday morning and that’s the last piece of good news. This case’s the gift that keeps on giving. I’ll have to do some patrolling with the local police and Mountain Rescue. It’s the FBI’s case and we can’t skimp off on it. But I’ll still have to sleep and eat somewhere so I’ll be at the cabin with you as much as I can. Okay?”

“There is no need for apologies, Laurene,” he drawled in an even voice that didn’t really tell her anything about his feelings on the issue. “If you’d rather postpone the trip, I would not be opposed. I am not American and I don’t attach the same sentimental value to this time of the year.”

She sighed tiredly. “No, this was supposed to be our first romantic get-away as an official couple. I won’t be gone the whole time, I promise. Alex, I’m trying really hard not to screw up what we have. Please, just let me….”

“Laurene, your worries are wholly without foundation. If anyone could ruin our relationship, it would be me, not you.”

She smiled grimly. “Do you swear?”

“Solemnly!”

“I really wanna go away with you this weekend. This isn’t me getting cold feet.”

“I know,” he replied calmly.

“So do I pick you up Saturday? I hope five in the morning is not too early.” 

“I shall wait with bated breath.”

She chuckled, leaning back in her desk chair. “You can’t say shall in that British accent of yours and don’t expect a girl not to want to go anywhere with you.”

# # #

“How do you know all this?” asked Hermione as she jogged after Kowalski and into a bustling room that was marked Major Investigation Department.

“I put a listening charm on the computer in Agent Hunt’s office,” he replied matter-of-factly. “I can hear everything that’s being said within its walls.”

“Really? Which listening charm?” she continued curiously.

He shot her a withering look but before he could respond something behind Hermione attracted his attention. “If there was any justice in this world, Laurene Hunt would be the witch and I’d be working with her instead,” he said snidely. “Do something about that. We’re leaving in half an hour by portkey.”

Hermione turned to see what had attracted Kowalski’s already belligerent attention and froze at the sight of Percy. He was dressed in a pinstripe suit reminiscent of his old mentor, Barty Crouch Senior, and shoes that were definitely not made for walking let alone mountain climbing. By contrast, Hermione had drawn on her experience hunting for Horcruxes in the wild and dressed in a warm flannel shirt, jeans and tough boots and had also brought along a chunky knit cardigan sweater and a scarf. Even in May, it could get cold in the mountains, especially if there were to stay the night when the dementors were more likely to attack.

Stifling a sigh, she pulled out her wand and moved towards Percy, inordinately happy that she excelled at Transfiguration.

# # #

Downtown Seattle took Percy completely by surprise as he took in the tall, sleek skyscrapers towering over them with shocked fascination. So far his main experience with a major Muggle metropolis had been limited to London and even in the British capital the witches and wizards tended to stick to the more traditional areas. Not that London had many skyscrapers, though Hermione had read they were planning to build quite a few futuristic ones at the advent of the new millennium.

It was an ideal May morning, the air balmy, and not a single cloud in sight. The city seemed strangely somnolent most likely owning it to the three-day weekend. It was a bit like London on a bank holiday.

Kowalski pointed to a massive, white building with elongated windows. “That’s the Lincoln Building,” he said. “The headquarters of the local FBI field office. We’ll be following Agent Hunt and her people… from a safe distance, of course. They’ve done a great job drawing on the sight of the most recent killings in order to establish a possible perimeter for a would-be attack. There’s no need for us to double their work. The problem is that once Hunt is out of her office, we’d no longer be able to hear her so we’ll have to be careful not to run smack into her team. If we do, however, remember: we’re tourists who got lost. I have the rest of my Aurors canvassing the area not covered by the FBI just in case there’ll be more than one attack or if Hunt’s got it wrong. We’ll have our work cut out for us. Hunt’s got the police and Mountain Rescue out and about too. Come on, let’s get a cup of coffee. We’ll be attracting attention standing here all obvious and staring at FBI offices.”

He indicated a nearby coffee shop by the bus stop across the street from the Lincoln Building. Despite the holiday and the hour, it was open. Kowalski ordered three coffees without asking Percy and Hermione what they wanted, and they all sat down by one of the high windows.

Percy’s trail runners squeaked a little as he walked clearly uncomfortable in his wind parka and hiking pants. Hermione tried giving him a reassuring look. He was visibly sulking still unhappy about the bout of clothing transfiguration Hermione had talked him into not without some difficulty. She had had to play the offending the Americans would not look good on his already spotty Ministry record card.

“That’s Hunt’s car,” said Kowalski.

A massive steel grey pickup truck zoomed past their window and along the mostly empty avenue. Hermione was certain its wheels would reach all the way up to her navel.

“Weren’t we supposed to be following her?” piped in Percy, looking more sullen with every passing second.

Kowalski didn’t reply. A waitress approached with three giant mugs which she then proceeded to fill with coffee from a pot. Hagrid would feel right at home in America, Hermione thought.

Kowalski paid waving off their attempts to chip in.

“Hunt’s going to pick up her boyfriend,” explained Kowalski once they were alone again. “They were supposed to spend Memorial Day weekend in a cabin near Mountain Rainier. She wants to split her time between him and patrolling.”

“Boyfriend?” asked Percy staring down at his coffee dubiously. Hermione had already noted he drank tea and only tea in the morning.

“Muggles have social lives too,” quipped Kowalski. “It’s her team that we want to see leave.”

“How are we going to follow them?” asked Hermione.

“Normally I’d be saying brooms but the sky’s way too clear to risk flying. Besides, we’d have to climb really high to avoid the skyscrapers and we could lose the cars. No, we’re driving.” He held up a set of car keys. “I had someone on the Investigative Team come a day early and rent a car. It’s parked nearby, on an adjacent street.”

“Are you Muggle-born?” inquired Hermione as she stirred some sugar into her coffee.

Kowalski shook his head. “Half-blood.” He took a gulp of his own drink. “I grew up in and out of the Muggle world. You might wanna drink that,” he added glancing at Percy. “I doubt we’d get much sleep in the next three days.”

Hermione indicated her beaded handbag lying on the table next to her. “I grabbed Pepper-Up and Strengthening Solution just in case.”

Kowalski grunted noncommittally as he drank some more of his coffee, fixing Hermione’s bag with a wary gaze. “I presume you’ve put an Extension Charm on that.”

“An Undetectable Extension Charm,” supplied Percy primly. “My brother says Hermione could fit half of London in there.”

The American harrumphed. “I don’t suppose you brought over Big Ben. I’ve always wanted to see it.”

Hermione chuckled. “No, sorry, I only packed Buckingham Palace this time.”

# # #

The day Severus Snape lost everything again began early. He got up without the benefit of an alarm clock, made coffee, and smoked a cigarette. He packed lightly, adding Faulkner’s _Requiem for a Nun_ and a thick tome on enzymology to his duffel bag. Looking back months later, he couldn’t remember encountering any omen of doom that morning. Not even an accidental opening of Faulkner’s book to the quote: _The past is not dead. In fact, it’s not even past._

After a quick shower, he dressed in black jeans and a matching long-sleeved polo short. He pulled the zipper of his bag closed and grabbed his oversized leather jacket. It was almost five. Laurene could be there any minute. Still, he hesitated thinking back to the incident with the owl just a few days back and to Laurene’s concern. He dropped his bag on the floor of his narrow hallway entrance and stalked back into the kitchen.

Laurene was by no means defenseless but a curse could fly as fast a bullet. Perhaps faster. Concentrating, he reached to place within himself he had neglected for two years straight. Magic pulsed so suddenly and intensely in his veins he could feel it like heat vibrating beneath his skin. He cast the spell wandlessly. A crack appeared in the wall above the sink revealing the items stored in an artificial breach separating two bricks.

His wand felt alive against the skin of his palm, the power concealed within beating like a heart. He squeezed his fingers around the handle. Magic trembled in his blood as the part of him that he had sought to cleave out slotted back into place. He willed it in check, raising a tentative Occlumency wall to block out the exhilaration. He could not afford the temptation.

There were two more items where his wand had been hidden: a portion of a photograph holding a smiling, moving Lily, and the ending of a letter with her love. They were in his free hand before he could think the better of it. He looked into Lily’s beloved, spellbinding face and it all fell to the side. Alex Nettlemore and the life he had in Seattle disappeared. He forgot everything about Laurene and her blatant care, Bob and the chemical supplies store, the college, and the strange, creeping feeling of safety. He was Severus Snape again and there was nothing and nobody in the world but Lily. Always.

“Alex… Alex!”

His wand hand came up. The picture and the torn sheet of paper vanished into the crack in the wall that promptly closed, the less than smooth surface of the plaster reconstructing in less than an instant. He spirited the wand in the inner pocket of his jacket and turned around.

Laurene stood in the doorway looking as though she had not slept a wink the night before. The tiredness in her face was a familiar sight. He had seen it in the mirror for years. She was dressed in a hooded, blue-grey fleece jacket, charcoal rain pants, and hiking boots.

The present slammed back into focus.

TBC


	4. The Dementors

The forest road towards the cabin was busier than the city they had left behind. As she took note of the hikers enjoying the gentle May weather and the long weekend, Laurene’s knuckles went whiter and whiter on the steering wheel, the curve of her mouth dour. Severus’ grip on the present wavered dangerously again. He thought back to the students traipsing along the twisted Hogwarts corridors in the years after the Dark Lord’s return, all children entrusted to him and for whom he had been responsible, as he wondered every day how many would survive the coming war and how best to protect them.

His wand felt unnaturally heavy as it pressed against his chest from his interior jacket pocket. He wished he had words of wisdom and comfort to impart to Laurene. Wasn’t that what boyfriends did? How was he to know? He had never had a girlfriend before. Besides, what right did he have to speak? The number of those he had failed to save weighed heavily upon his conscience. Then there was Dumbledore.

_Murderer!_

He looked at Laurene’s profile as she drove with deft, confident moves. There was a nobility of spirit he found admirable about her. The lie hung heavily in the air between them. He flashed back to what had condemned him in Lily’s eyes. What would condemn him in Laurene’s? The fact that he had lied or that he was a wanted criminal? Perhaps, both.

“Let’s see,” muttered Laurene distractedly. “Make a left at the campsite…. I swear over half of Seattle moved into these woods.”

She was right. Said campsite was overcrowded, colorful tents nestled close together. They passed a cluster of large, well-maintained cabins then the car hit a pothole. Laurene swore in that colorful manner of hers.

“I think we should be looking for the rope Rachel must keep around to hand herself some time. She’s such a city girl. Jack and the kids are lucky she loves them…. This must be it.”

The tiny log cabin etched against a smattering of mountain hemlocks was nothing like the ones they had encountered along the way. Laurene killed the engine, interrupting Lynyrd Skynyrd halfway through _Simple Man_.

The cabin’s interior was claustrophobic. There were three bunk beds that he reckoned belonged to the children of Laurene’s friend and a large regular bed for adults, a few well-worn bean chairs, a foldable table, a threadbare rug on the floor, fishing rods propped against the walls, and in one corner, a stove bordered by two small wooden cabinets fixed to the wall. There were a few shelves, too, holding a disarming assortment of cans, pots, and books.

“I found the portable shower,” announced Laurene. “I don’t think there’s a bathroom so there must be an outhouse in the back somewhere.” She sounded apologetic.

Severus dropped his bag on the floor. “We had an outhouse where I grew up too,” he said smoothly. 

Laurene’s thick, dark eye-brows shot towards her hairline. “And I thought I grew up poor.”

“You did grow up poor,” he pointed out.

“At least, we had running water. Anyhow, impromptu trip down the memory lane aside, those cabins we saw down the road are about five-six minutes away and the campsite around fifteen. Then there are all the hikers roaming these woods. It’s not like you’re gonna be alone out here without me. But just in case.” She bent over her bag and pulled something out of it. It was a handgun. Black, with a long barrel. “It’s my own personal firearm. I’ll have my service weapon and my back-up with me so that won’t be an issue. This one’s a Beretta M9, semi-automatic and before you say anything, I’d really feel better if you took it.”

“I wouldn’t know how to use it,” he said, running a thoughtful finger along his upper lip.

She inclined her head towards the door. “Come on. I’ll show you how.”

“There are children around us,” he said outraged.

“People hunt in these woods. But if you’re still squeamish about it, I’ve got a silencer too.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Of course, you do.”

“And a rifle in the car,” she added with a slight smile.

“I’m suddenly overcome with gratitude that we didn’t arrive here in a tank.”

She shrugged. “I’ve got a permit for everything.” 

A riotous cry erupted from the outside. Laurene thrust the Beretta into Severus’ hands and removed another gun from her lower back—a chunkier looking one with a metallic sheen. She burst through the door while he stayed behind to drop the weapon he had given him. He was already armed.

The pathway leading away from the cabin had a downward tilt that Laurene covered with brisk, efficient steps as she crept stealthily along the tree curtain. Severus slipped out and trailed after her without making a noise.

They came across five teenagers on dirt bikes enjoying what looked suspiciously like cans of beer. Laurene replaced her gun in its holster smoothing her fleece jacket back over it with two of her fingers. Then she held up her FBI identification badge.

“Shit,” one of the youngsters swore dropping his beer can. He hopped back on his bike and sped away quickly followed by his comrades who similarly abandoned their drinks.

Severus adopted a carefully neutral expression and shuffled his feet in order to announce his presence.

“This must bring back some memories for you,” Laurene said with a wink. “Busting kids for underage drinking.”

He smirked wondering what Laurene would think of the wizarding world acceptance of minors consuming the lightly alcoholic butterbeer.

“As a matter of fact, the most frequent violations I encountered involved roaming the corridors after curfew.”

Laurene stuck her hands in the pockets of her jacket as they ambled leisurely back to the cabin. “Scandalous! You, Brits, sure know how to live it up in school.”

“Of course, there was that one time when a student stabbed his long-time rival in the chest. The same student who in his second year decided he wanted to arrive at school with a bang and stole his sidekick’s father car to do it. At one point and his friends also broke into my office and stole chemical supplies.”

“You’re kidding?” When she saw him merely raise an eye-brow in reply, she continued: “I went to school in gang territory and we had fewer instances of juvenile delinquency.”

“What if I told you that is not all? Far from it, in fact.”

“You wanna make me eat my words about that quip I made earlier regarding Brits and school time antics, don’t you?”

# # #

Laurene’s weight was warm at his back. They were roughly the same height—she was perhaps an inch or two shorter—so it was easy for her to wrap herself around him from behind her hands holding his right one securely as he clutched her Beretta M9. She had lined up a few empty soda cans form them to shoot at. They had come from her bag as she had obviously planned this beforehand apparently loath to leave him alone and unarmed at the cabin.

Severus considered lying again, pretending that his fingers were not the steady ones of a seasoned duelist and that they weren’t strong after decades spent slicing, dicing and cutting as a potion master. He certainly had the skill set for the deception. He had lied to the Dark Lord and his most vicious Death Eaters for years. But he was tired, worn down by Laurene’s manifest concern and her determination to protect him. His own mother had never protected him. She had been unable to protect herself even.

“Relax,” instructed Laurene calmly, her breath ghosting over the cartilage of his ear. “Don’t think of hitting the target. Just pull the trigger.” She pressed down on his right index finger and he squeezed at the piece of metal curled around his digit.

The red and brown can flew off it boulder.

Laurene whistled then kissed him high on the temple. “Wow, all that lab work paid off. That’s a firm and sure grip you have. One more time?”

“You might be saying one more time but what you truly mean is until we run out of tins,” he commented dryly.

She chuckled leaning heavily on him. “You read minds or something?”

It took the experience of many years as a spy not to stiffen. She was only jesting. Her light tone was a dead give-away. He canted the gun slightly to the side and blew away another can. He knew that Muggles did this as a sport with no lethal intentions. He thought he was beginning to see the appeal of it as it required precision and demanded far less athletic prowess than Quidditch, the game he had dreamt of playing in school but never could because he had been too scrawny and unstable on a broom despite his flawless theoretical understanding of it. It occurred to him just then how limitative it was that the wizarding world only had one sport.

They ate a breakfast of cold cuts, buttered pan toast, and cherry Danish Laurene had brought over from her favorite bakery not far from the FBI offices. They washed it down with copious amounts of black coffee. Then Laurene left with no promises of a quick return. She did advise him to go and admire the reflection of the mountain in a nearby lake. Severus pulled out his enzymology book instead.

# # #

Laurene came back late in the afternoon looking more harassed than when she had left. She saw no need to share with him how word had been, and he didn’t ask. She used the portable shower to clean herself and changed into a pair of jeans and striped navy and white T-shirt that imitated the uniform of her favorite baseball team. They ate the sandwiches he made and drank tea. Or at least, he did. Laurene had a ginger ale. Then they put on their jackets and hiked towards the lake.

Somebody had lit a large bonfire not far from the camping site while a nearby Boombox drowned out all the would-be sounds of nature.

“Nothing like the peace of quiet of the great outdoors, eh?” muttered Laurene snidely.

He sneered and agreed.

But the tension had leached out of her. Halfway through the road she drew closer to him and snatched his hand awkwardly, entwining their fingers. He started. They had never held hands before. He had never held hands before. He told the leap of his heart to settle down. He was forty and way past any sort of adolescent reaction.

When he managed to wrench himself out of scowling at his speeding pulse, he found Laurene staring quizzically at him. He grabbed her hand more firmly in his, doing his best to feign nonchalance he was miles away from. The tiniest of smiles touched her round lips.

The forest gave way to a boulder-strewn alpine landscape covered in stunted green grass. The snowcapped mountain was reflected in the still surface of the lake perfectly looking as though it were on fire surrounded as it was by the violently orange skies of sunset. The nearby firs looked blackened as if sculptured from coal.

It had gotten cold this close to the evening. The silvery crescent of the moon was floating through the rust-like clouds, while the evening star and a few of its earliest companions painted prickles of white light against the fiery shades of twilight.

They were alone though they could hear the ruckus at the campsite resounding from not far behind.

“It’s gotten really chilly all of the sudden,” she remarked her breath visible like mist.

He frowned. It did, didn’t it? He tilted his face towards the mountain. His hair was in a ponytail so the evening breeze that had turned suddenly icy could only blow a figment of a stray lock in his face. The moon and the first stars were gone and the sky was inky black as though the fire of before had been put out abruptly. The mountain that a moment ago had been profiled against the horizon so majestically and benignly had turned into a monstrously dark silhouette hovering menacingly above them.

“It’s strange how it got so cloudy so quickly,” said Laurene breathily a twinge of uncertainty coloring her voice. The tips of her fingers were ice-cold against the skin of his palm.

She had no frame of reference for what was happening but her instinct for danger was warning her that something was off.

_It’s not possible_ , thought Severus. There were no recorded cases of dementors in North America. The only known colony was that of Azkaban. Even if the foul creatures had been unable or prevented from returning to the prison after Voldemort’s defeat, there couldn’t be here, an ocean away.

Laurene was saying something but Severus didn’t hear her. He couldn’t hear her. What he heard instead shattered any doubt he might entertain, obliterating any trickle of hope he could still be clinging to. His ears resounded only with the sound of loud, croaky breathing rattling the frigid air that filled his lungs with pinpricks of frost. They were close and swarming around them as though forming some sort of a trap.

He gripped Laurene’s hand tighter wrenching her towards him until their shoulders touched. “Whatever you do,” he began urgently, adrenaline dumping by the gallons in his veins. His wand was already in his free hand, summoned through thought. “Do not open your mouth!”

He let go of her hand. It was then that he heard the voices like the cracking of terror across his psyche. One of the dementors laughed triumphantly, the strident echo cutting like a knife through his concentration. He slammed his Occlumency walls up so fast blinding head-ached erupted inside his skull but pain was nothing but his oldest friend. He blinked ignoring the familiar stab and raised his wand as he stepped forward and in front of Laurene.

“Expecto patronum,” he clamored.

The twisted darkness of the rapidly descending night pulsed around him as if alive. The guttural breathing was converging upon them like buffer that drained anything that was even remotely joyful in the world, leaving nothing but sickening feeling behind. And at the bottom of that tarry pit the universe that been reduced to, a doe of delicate silver mist broke out of the tip of Severus wand and dove into the thicket of cloaked figures swirling above, their scaly, scabbed fingers stretching eagerly towards their victims.

# # #

It had gotten cold all of a sudden, iciness dousing Laurene thick and insidious. She could feel all the way into the marrow of her bones and in the depths of her lungs restricting her breathing. Then the blazing red and orange of the sunset blinked out of existence taking the half-moon and the early stars with them. It was then that she felt it, more acute and terrible than the cold. The peace that had settled over her as she had been walking hand in hand with Alex leached out only to be replaced by despair so profound it bordered on horror.

She was back in the closet, arms wrapped around her knees, face hidden in the ratty sleeve of her blouse to muffle any whimper that might escape her vigilance. She listened to the angry shouts of her mother and her boyfriend clattering from the bedroom until her ears picked up a crashing noise that made her breath froze with fear in the back of her throat. She felt powerless and she had vowed she would be powerless again.

The baking heat of the desert drove away from the chill of fear but brought no relief. She could hear the explosions and the cries of the wounded and the terrified screams of the dying. Pain ripped through her lower abdomen and she tasted blood on the back of her tongue. She felt the coarseness of sand against her cheek as the smell of death and burning flesh filled her nostrils.

The night above was pitch black and awash with desolation. There was nothing but brutal, senseless grief left on earth, and she sought desperately for a respite, her fingers feeling for Alex’s hand but all they encountered was cold dampness that felt like rot to the touch. She thought she heard Alex speak but the words held no meaning. He had said something to her before as well but his voice had sounded as if from far away, distorted and confused. Her mind reeled fighting to remember what he had said.

On instinct, her jaws clenched shut with so much force the impact hurt. Just then she felt something bent over her. It was too dark, she couldn’t see. It was vital that she saw. Because she knew deep down inside and without being able to explain that it was something living that hovered above her and that it was about to kill her. She wanted to scream. She could feel it building in her chest yet she kept her mouth resolutely shut.

The night shifted again and despite the haze of powerlessness and desperation, she could still perceive the wondrous sight of a silvery doe that seemed to be etched out of sheer vapor. The strange doe came at her and a second later breathing became less of a chore. Her scream dissolved before it could be uttered.

The darkness swirled again and again. It threatened to swallow the doe congregating over her but the frail, misty creature began to tear chunks out of it. Strips of light appeared as if from nowhere and the sky started to clear, the blackness making room for a return of the fierce flames of the sundown though they were much stoked now. But the brightest light came from much nearer.

Alex was holding up something tall and slender that appeared to be nothing more than a stick if it weren’t for the bright halo of white light spilling from its tip. That odd beam made him seem paler than Laurene had ever seen him his face twisted in a terrible expression of rage. His eyes looked positively demonic, as black as the night that had nearly swallowed Laurene whole. As a matter of fact, the unnatural darkness still hovered around him, the light parting it in half, making it look like a pair of gigantic, frayed wings had sprouted out of his back.

A single thought pulsed out of Laurene’s frazzled consciousness. It was absurd but persistent. _This man is not human!_

Still horror-struck, she drew back, wetness seeping into her back as she realized that she was trudging through the mud and moss on the shore of the lake. She had fallen to the ground, not that she could recall when and how.

“Laurene,” he said his voice gravelly. Most of his hair had fallen from its bind and was now fleeting freely around his face. His hand stretched out, ghostly white in the receding darkness. “It’s me. It’s over. They are gone now.”

He lowered the strange stick he had been holding up and made to bend over her, more onyx strands of hair falling in a face that had lost all sense of familiarity to her. The light returned more fully to the world, she realized dimly. The crescent moon was back by the right side of Mount Rainier.

Her Glock was still strapped to her ankle, she recalled. Before she even knew she had moved, the gun was in her hand, which was probably a mistake, since her fingers were shaking so very badly that she could shoot him by accident. Still, her index was on the trigger instead of along the barrel.

Weirdly enough, Alex’s expression smoothed into cool blankness. “If you mean to fire, do so now,” he said flatly.

There was mud on the hand frozen on her gun. “What are you?”

“A murderer,” he replied in the same almost bored tone of voice. “So shoot me if you must but if you decide against it, you have to let me go… or they will kill somebody else tonight, maybe more than one person. The excitement at the campsite is luring them inescapably. I believe we were merely a station on the way.”

Her hand all of a sudden steady on the gun, Laurene pulled the trigger.

TBC


	5. Snape's Confession

At first, Severus thought Laurene had missed as the bullet that flew from her gun whistled past his ear. However, when she made to fire again, her gun cocked slightly to the side. She wasn’t shooting at him, she was aiming for a target behind him. He whirled around wand at the ready, shielding Laurene with his own body.

A sharp yelp shattered the stillness of the early evening. Hermione Granger’s eyes went so wide they seemed like they were about to pop out of her head any moment now. Her lips parted and her wand slipped from her fingers, a fatal mistake given that she was faced with both him and an armed FBI agent who had already shot at her once.

He half-turned back to Laurene. “It wasn’t them who attacked us,” he said urgently.

Granger wasn’t alone. Percy Weasley was with her.

His warning came too late, anyway. Laurene was incapable of shooting a second time. Her hand was trembling uncontrollably on her gun while her eyes had begun to roll in the back of her head. He bent over her and pried the weapon from her nerveless fingers. Her teeth were bared and chattering while her lips had gone nearly white. Her skin was ice cold. She was going into shock.

“Legilimens,” he whispered softly.

The images in Laurene’s mind were familiar. A child version of her was crying in a closet, hiding from the fights between her mother and her many, ever changing boyfriends. Then there was the war. Flashes of fire, pain, and mournful screams rushed past him until they dissolved into a tall, olive-skinned man he had never seen before shouting at an uncharacteristically subdued Laurene.

“I can’t do this anymore…. You’ve changed…. You’ve come back from the war a different person.”

“Please, Frank, don’t do this. I’ll try harder….”

Then the darkness and the cold threatened to swallow them both but he resisted the pull, grabbing the shaken mental image of Laurene, and extending one of his Occlumency walls to protect them both from the aftermath of their recent run-in with dementors.

You are safe, he whispered in her mind. They are here for me. They shan’t hurt you!

He pulled her out of the depths of her traumas and back to the surface with him. Then he withdrew from her mind.

When the breeze of the evening was caressing his face again, whipping the hair that had come off its bind entirely into his face, Laurene’s eyes were clear and focused.

He extended a hand to her gingerly, uncertain whether she would allow him to touch her, given the fear he had seen in her upon witnessing the evidence of his magic. But her large, gun-calloused hand came over his and she allowed him to pull her to her feet.

“Scourgify,” he murmured cleaning the mud and grass sticking to her back.

“I’m not hallucinating, am I?” she asked, her expression still stricken and her voice croaky.

“I wish he both were,” he said sincerely. “But, no,” he rushed to add glumly. “You are most certainly not hallucinating.”

Granger and Weasley had drawn closer in the meantime. It wasn’t hard to imagine what they were doing in America. Somehow he had been found out, and they had come to arrest him. He just couldn’t figure out what in the world had possessed them to bring dementors over here too and let them run amok. They had to think him exceptionally dangerous, he realized not without a certain amount of pride. He had let go of his chance to flee when he had decided to help Laurene instead. But at least, he could comfort himself with the notion that the Ministry of Magic quaked in its boots at the thought of him.

Granger took another step in his direction, her wand nowhere in sight. As her former Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, he felt personally insulted. Didn’t the girl have any sense of self-preservation? Weasley stayed back, hovering uncertainly, gaping open-mouthed at Severus, his wand pointed at the ground. He wanted to jinx them both for their carelessness alone.

“It’s you… it’s really you,” muttered Granger in a daze, her lips seeming to have a hard time working around the words. “Oh, Professor Snape!”

Then something truly horrible happened. Granger sprinted towards him, her boots squelching as they slogged through the mud, and threw herself against him. At first, Severus thought she was attacking him. It took him a split second to understand it was even worse: the insufferable know-it-all was hugging him, her arms looping around him with startling fierceness. She hid her face against his chest, uttering words that were muffled against his jacket and generally made no sense.

“I can’t believe it,” she babbled lifting her face which was tears-streaked. “It is you! Oh… I feel like I’m dreaming.” Her fingers scrambled for purchase on the leather of his jacket and she grabbed his upper arms with fingers that felt like desperate talons. “How… when…? No matter, we’ll have time for that later.”

Her sniffles brought Severus back to reality, bizarre and dreamlike that it was. “Granger, remove yourself from my person at once!”

“It’s him alright,” confirmed the representative of the Weasley clan.

Severus glared at him. Meanwhile, Granger was still not letting go, staring up at him with a stupidly dreamy expression. She actually smiled through her tears that were flowing freely now. Severus had never wanted to kill someone more… or so he thought, at least. He had certainly and more or less seriously made numerous plans to murder his father as well as the Marauders.

Finally, he jerked out of Granger’s arms, nearly stumbling backward as he did. She had had a death grip on him. Her arms lurked in the air for a few moments more as if she were loath to lower them, her gaze still fixed on him and still strangely wistful. What was with her? Why wasn’t she arresting him or ranting and raving about him being a Death Eater and killing Dumbledore?

“In case this might concern someone, there are dementors milling about and most likely intent on tending to the extremely appetizing feast the Muggles at a campsite nearby are preparing for them with their enthusiasm.”

“The American Aurors are headed there right now.” It was Weasley who spoke. “They’ll sort it out.”

Severus turned his head towards Laurene who was looking at them curiously then glanced back at Granger. How he wished that foolish girl would wipe that elated expression off her face! “She doesn’t know anything. I want to be the one to tell her. Then it should her choice whether she wants to be obliviated or not.”

Granger’s brow furrowed. “Of course,” she said dimly. “Of course.” She appeared to notice Laurene for the first time and was now studying with determined interest.

“Friends of yours?” asked Laurene snidely.

“Not if I can help it,” grumbled Severus.

A small, wry smile turned Laurene’s mouth.

“I owe you an explanation,” continued Severus.

“Do ya think?” uttered Laurene sarcastically.

He gestured towards two nearby boulders letting Laurene sit down first. She stumbled a little but managed to sit down without further incidents. They were reasonably out of Weasley and Granger’s earshot, though he could still feel their eyes on them. Were they guarding him as they waited for back-up before immobilizing him? Or were they wary of the Muggle in their midst? The same Muggle who had fired her weapon in order to protect him immediately after he had just admitted to being a murderer?

“The world we all live in is far more complex than you know,” he began feeling compelled to tell her the truth. He owed her that at least, regardless of how the whole debacle was going to unfold from then on.

“Yeah, I’m starting to get that,” she mumbled.

He felt a smile press at his mouth. “I am a wizard, Laurene.”

She laughed though it was faintly tinged with hysteria. He couldn’t even begin to fathom how surreal this was to her.

He stood up again and pulled out his wand. “Piertotum Locomotor,” he said and the boulders around them sprang up into the air levitating all around them.

Lauren gasped loudly, her eyes going almost as wide as Granger’s had been less than a minute ago.

“Finite incantatem,” he said and all the boulders dropped back into their places.

He cast another spell then sent the flower that had appeared in his palm drifting towards her. It was one of those pale pink rhododendrons that flourished around Seattle in April and May. Laurene looked at him incredulously and snatched the flower hovering in mid-air before her.

“Thanks,” she said looking from the flower up to him and back again. “What were those things that attacked us?”

“You were not able to see them, were you?”

Laurene shook her head. “I don’t need to see to know when something’s trying to kill me.”

Severus regarded her gravelly. “I shall answer your question but first, is this truly what you mean to ask me?”

Laurene closed her fingers around the flower, holding it in the palm of her hand as if it were a small baby bird. “Who did you kill?”

“The headmaster of the school where I used to work,” he replied evenly.

“Were you trying to get out of doing overtime?”

“He asked me to do it… insisted upon it, in fact, even as I attempted to tell him he was asking for too much, that such an act would surely tear my soul.”

Laurene’s gaze darkened. “I know exactly what murder does to your soul,” she said grimly.

Their gazes locked and he saw a flash of it: Laurene pointing a gun at a similarly armed man asking him to surrender and then shooting him in the head when he refused. He looked to the ground.

“Is Alex Nettlemore even your real name?”

He shook his head, suddenly overcome with shame. Shame at peering into her mind, albeit involuntarily, and shame at who and what he was. “No, my name is Severus Tobias Snape.”

Laurene howled with laughter. “You’re kidding….” She stopped abruptly when he cast her a withering look. “You’re not kidding!” She laughed some more.

“You may continue to refer to me as Alex if you wish,” he said, starting to feel peeved.

“Not on your life!” She paused, staring at him dubiously. “So magic is real? Really real? I didn’t just hit my head hard on the ground, did I? What else? Vampires, werewolves, giants, fairies, sirens… dragons?” Her eyes were widening again with each creature she mentioned that he nodded at. “Bigfoot too?”

“Oh, sasquatches… of course, they exist. They gave quite a bit of trouble to the Magical Congress of the United States of America when they mounted a large-scale rebellion in 1892. I believe they still do as they have a habit of wandering into Muggle-inhabited areas and therefore risk the exposure of our world.”

“You’re pulling my leg, right?”

“No, there is an excellent history book describing the sasquatch rebellion extensively. Big Foot’s Last Stand, it is called.”

“You, guys, have history books? Wait, you said you did work in a school. You don’t mean a regular school, do you?”

He stifled a sigh, regarding her solemnly, all too aware of Granger and Weasley’s eyes trained on the two of them albeit from a distance. “I might have lied about my name and being a wizard but everything else I told you about myself is true. I do come from Cokeworth, in the Northern Midlands, I did grow up poor in a house without running water and most of the time, without food as well. My father did indeed hit me and my mother. And I did spend most of my life teaching at a boarding school in Scotland. The most important part of what I concealed you, however, is the fact that I am a wanted criminal, which is the reason I left England. I came here to hide… that was all. I never planned on…. It is of no consequence now, I suspect. I am sorry, Laurene! Truly!”

“What did you do? Except for killing your boss, I mean?” Her tone held no accusation but instead sounded calm and businesslike. Of course! An investigator like Laurene would first like to have all of the facts before drawing any kind of conclusions.

He took a deep breath and began recounting his tale, keeping it brief and detail-free. He told her of joining the Dark Lord, of the threat to Lily, whom he mentioned only as a childhood friend, and of going to Dumbledore….

“Wait a minute,” interrupted Laurene. “This Lily and her husband were of part of Dumbledore’s little subversive guerilla group so he was essentially their commanding officer.”

“I suppose…. In a manner of speaking, yes, that would be the case.”

“I was in the Marines, remember? I know a chain-of-command when I see one. A superior protects his or her soldiers no matter what, especially during wartime. You don’t use their safety as a bargaining chip with an enemy combatant. What would he have done if you had refused to spy for him? Would he have left a young couple and their baby die?”

“I would have never refused him,” he said darkly, outraged at the mere notion. “If he had asked me to rip out my own heart and hand it to him, I would have done it!”

Laurene scowled, a hint of menace in her eyes. “He shouldn’t have asked! That’s my whole point. Any commander ensures the life and safety of his people first and foremost. That’s their paramount concern and it’s not negotiable. I’ve commanded men and women in battle. You’re asking those people to follow you into the fire, sometimes to certain death. They need to know you have their back in return. No wonder you killed this Dumbledore guy! I would’ve killed him myself!”

“You do not understand,” he countered, wishing his voice held more conviction.

“Oh, I understand perfectly,” she bit back. “This man was your friend and you cared about him.”

“I doubt Dumbledore would have counted me among his friends.”

Laurene’s lips twisted in an unpleasant grimace. “This just keeps getting better and better,” she said. “Alright… moving on… what happened next?”

He told her the rest: how despite his agreeing to spy for Dumbledore, Lily still died, how he thought to take his own life but Dumbledore convinced him to live to protect Lily’s son, the boy with her green eyes, how the Dark Lord returned, about his role as a triple agent, the curse in Dumbledore’s hand, how his desperate and ultimately failed attempts to save the Headmaster culminated with his murder of Dumbledore instead, about being a headmaster himself, Nagini’s attack and his flight to the United States. He felt wrung out by the time he was through like a wet rag that had been squeezed of all the water in it. Breath rattled uncomfortably in his chest. The story of his old life felt decidedly surreal as he sat there, in the ashes of his new one.

Laurene’s eyes were shining in the descending darkness. He thought she might be quietly weeping, which was odd. As far as he had gotten to know her, Laurene wasn’t one for tears.

“That Dumbledore was a real piece of work. When I get into the afterlife, I’m gonna deck him.” She held up a hand in mock surrender. “Out of respect for you, I’m gonna refrain from saying any of the many, many things that come to mind right now. But… everything you’ve told me should constitute more than sufficient mitigating circumstances if not to declare you a war hero then at least to secure your exoneration. Look, people do messed-up things when they’re undercover. It sucks and it haunts you afterward but it kinda comes with the territory. Trust me to know that! I’ve been undercover a few times myself.”

He opened his mouth to argue but something in her face stopped him. She was seeking his gaze but he was careful to avoid any eye-contact. In the presence of his wand, his casual Legilimency always strengthened. “I must confess I expected you to be incensed upon discovering that I have lied to you.”

She shrugged. “It’s not like we’re in love or something. We’re two adults tentatively feeling our way into a new relationship. I fully expected you not to have told me everything. Granted I thought you’d be hiding something more mundane and far less Tolkien but there’s stuff about me I haven’t told you, either, so all in all, I guess we’re good.”

He looked at her then, his Occlumency walls having a hard time withstanding the mixed tide of emotion rising within him. “Anyone I know from my old life would have eviscerated me for half of what I have just admitted to tonight.”

“There’s a lot of black and white in that magical world of yours, isn’t it?” she said.

“My world might be filled with magic but it is hardly magical. You are right, however, about its black and white outlook. Subtlety is often in short supply where I come from.”

She gave him a small, rueful smile. “It must’ve been hard.”

“Being made of shades of grey in a world of black and white?” He felt a muscle jump in his jaw and he covered it up with a sneer. “Life isn’t fair.”

“In your world as well as in mine.” It had gone completely dark now. The crescent moon along with a myriad of stars were glittering above, casting a meager, opalescent light onto the ground. Granger and Weasley were nothing but dull silhouettes profiled by the black mirror of the lake.

A wolverine made of silver mist bounded to Granger and Weasley and apparently had something to tell them. Severus pulled out his wand and cast a silent Lumos. He held the ball of light before his face peering at Laurene. “We should go,” he said softly, reluctantly. “They would be expecting me.”

He caught Laurene’s gaze and a flash of regret flooded into his consciousness from her. She tilted her head and leaned over careful to avoid the tip of his wand, and kissed him gently on the lips. Severus closed his eyes and kissed her back. Thoughts fled from his mind. Whatever might be awaiting for him from his two former students—Azkaban or death—at least, he got to have this: this acceptance. And the two years, the chemical supplies shop, Bob, the college, his professors’ appreciation, and the quiet routine of the passing days when he didn’t have to look over his shoulder. All his life he had looked over his shoulder. For his father, for the Marauders, for Aurors, for Voldemort and the Death Eaters, for both sides he had served. Somehow, however, over the course of these past two years, he had lost the habit. He could have almost believed himself safe.

Laurene’s kiss tasted of safety, of acceptance, and loss. They parted and in her eyes, he saw all the things he almost had for the first time in his life.

“Severus,” she said looking down at the flower in the palm of her hand, the flower he had given her. “It has a kind of musicality to it, doesn’t it?”

TBC

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Please remember that fanfic authors are only paid in reviews and comments. :)


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